Freedom and liberty are the foundation of America. This love of freedom requires that freedom for others be just as important as freedom for you. Today this commitment to freedom is being superceded by a constant government expansion that will leave all of us subservient to the power of bureaucrats.

Friday, May 23, 2008

The state of Texas had no right to remove hundreds of children from a polygamist sect because it has not proven they were in imminent danger, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Officials raided the sprawling compound of the reclusive sect on April 3 and took 250 girls and 213 boys into state custody amid allegations of systemic sexual and physical abuse.

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"The Department did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty," the nine page ruling said.

Investigators were also unable to prove that the teenaged girls who had become pregnant had been married to older men.

"The Department conceded at the hearing that teenage pregnancy, by itself, is not a reason to remove children from their home and parents."

It is now clear that the original report of a teenage girl being abused was a fraud and a lie.

The court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as a single household. and to seize all the children on the grounds that some parents in the home might be abusers.

Of the 31 girls the state initially said were underage mothers, 15 have already been determined to be adults. One of them is 27. The rest are not yet proved to be underage but investigation continues.

The bureacrats deny they did anything wrong and continue to defend removal of the over 400 children. They reject that this removal has done more harm than any harm that was possible by leaving all but the teenage girls with their parents. Being bureacrats, they never will. This entire episode is indicative of the egregious results of a socialist society. The abuse by these bureacrats is typical of people who have the power of government and the arrogance of self righteousness.